A drive to Plymouth will not be a brief one by any means for Liverpool supporters, however Steven Scragg made the journey and here’s what he fabricated from the Reds’ FA Cup exit.
Simply if you’re basking within the glow of wider opinion that Liverpool are successfully the perfect staff on the face of the planet, it’s life-affirming to expertise a day that confirms soccer will at all times discover a method of biting your hand, must you dare to take the sport with no consideration.
Throughout the Dalglish, Souness, Evans, Houllier and Benitez eras, I used to journey in all places watching the Reds, however then the position of fatherhood dawned and life type of escalated quickly.
When the arrival of the £30 away ticket kicked in simply as I’d taken my eye off the credit ball, it meant that away Premier League video games additionally turned a factor of the previous for me. However I did handle to stay lucid sufficient to maintain my away FA Cup loyalty up, that means that throughout the final decade and a half I’ve embraced the event’s awaydays for all their value.
Having missed the 2017 journey to Plymouth as a consequence of in poor health well being, I used to be at all times going to leap at this one, if solely to tick off floor quantity 70 out of the present 92 groups of the Premier League and Soccer League, all within the title of stadium geekery.
The magic has modified
FA Cup finals are nice issues to be an energetic a part of as a supporter, extra so if you win them clearly, and there’s something defiantly wondrous about rocking up at Goodison or Outdated Trafford and claiming 15 p.c of the tickets in what looks like a name to arms.
However the perfect a part of the competitors is these journeys to stadiums that aren’t a part of the customarily repetitive cycle of ones you go to on league weekends.
Throughout my Liverpool watching years, alongside the extra acquainted outposts, I’ve been fortunate sufficient to have a ticket for video games at locations just like the Goldstone Floor, Bootham Crescent, Oakwell, the Victoria Floor, Brunton Park, the Vetch Fiel and Gresty Highway.
Plus Twerton Park, Burnden Park, Ashton Gate, Homosexual Meadow and the New Meadow, Vale Park, Huish Park, Deepdale, Subject Mill, Kingsmeadow, St James Park (Exeter Metropolis model), and now Residence Park, together with one or two totally forgettable Meccano new builds.
Misadventure of end result and efficiency apart. Residence Park makes it 70/92 league grounds and counting. pic.twitter.com/tWCflp6WHh
— Steven Scragg (@Scraggy_74) February 10, 2025
A few of these stadiums are actually lengthy gone, which makes their ticked field much more beneficial to have marked off.
However, on the identical time, the up to date method to the FA Cup by trendy teaching considering, an method that arguably now stretches throughout half of my lifetime, takes one thing away from the broader aura of the competitors.
Not precisely a groundbreaking opinion, I admit, however everyone knows that the ‘Magic of the FA Cup‘ is now an exceptionally uncommon commodity and has been for many years.
To youthful generations which were introduced up on a weight-reduction plan of the Premier League and Champions League being all-consuming megaliths, and the remainder of soccer being a trivial distraction by and enormous, it could come as a shock to listen to that the FA Cup used to impress sleepless nights and chilly sweats.
It was a contest with an outlined sense of peril. The magic was very actual.
Sure, there was at all times the tried and examined line of “nicely, at the very least we are able to consider the league now,” from the place we might truly go on to fulfil the prophesy of throwing the First Division trophy from participant to participant round Anfield in Might.
However an FA Cup exit nonetheless stung, and all through the primary half of the Eighties, it was fairly the irritation that we couldn’t fairly scratch. At the least not till 1986.
Now the sentiment may be very totally different. Three days previous to the journey to Devon, Liverpool had already obtained themselves a visit to Wembley for the League Cup closing.
Pragmatic Reds
With the rearranged Merseyside Derby looming on Wednesday, it was no shock to undertake the five-hour drive to Plymouth solely to be greeted by information of a lineup that appeared just like the again finish of a Ford Cortina welded onto the entrance finish of a TR7.
What the fourth spherical of the FA Cup used to symbolize was the second precarious hurdle of the competitors, one which the profitable clearing of would give rise to the hope of a sort house draw being plucked out of the velvet bag for the fifth spherical by some historical relic of a stuffed shirt.
From there, when you squinted nearly sufficient, you would vaguely make out the silhouette of Wembley’s twin towers, a visage that may lend to daydreaming a few sunny Saturday in Might; and the curve of that shadow from the roof of the Wembley stands; and the lengthy stroll from the tunnel finish for the gamers as they waved to members of the family within the crowd.
Nevertheless, the jumpers for goalposts period has lengthy gone and the fourth spherical of the FA Cup now represents a big gamble value making.
Essential league and European video games await us, as does a visit to Anfield South to contest the ultimate of English soccer’s different home cup competitors.
Pragmatism means 10 modifications are made to the beginning line-up, and a look on the listing of substitutes has you scratching your head attempting to work out who one or two of the names are.
On Sunday, we have been dealt the sucker punch that lands now and again if you go up towards decided opponents which are fairly rightly grabbing their 90 minutes of nationwide fame towards a much bigger staff with an incohesive assortment of acquainted faces and hopeful kids, which are struggling to kind a footballing chemistry collectively.
Plymouth deserved their win, whereas Liverpool received their simply deserts.
The excitable house assist will bear in mind it eternally and a day, and so they need to. They’ll additionally seemingly see their staff lose within the league on the exact same pitch to Millwall whereas we’re doing battle within the last-ever Merseyside Derby to happen at Goodison.
It’s the best way of the footballing world.
As I meandered again to my automobile after the sport it wasn’t a journey I made with the load of defeat resting on my shoulders, though even that in itself was loosely unsettling on condition that as a child an FA Cup exit harm for weeks, it was extra a query of creating positive I received some petrol for the lengthy journey house earlier than I received to the M5.
Therefore, by way of mine, and I’m positive the eyes of many people who lived the glory days of yore, an FA Cup tie now could be all about ticking one other floor from the listing and muted disappointment once we’re drawn to play at house, but having fun with the celebration ought to we discover ourselves working spherical Wembley with the cup.
Identical once more subsequent 12 months.
